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Alan Ball reckons with his own life in 'My Uncle Frank'

2020-12-05T05:19:06.210Z


The creator of 'Two Meters Underground' leaves his cynical side aside in the new Amazon Prime Video film, a tale about the trauma around homosexuality


Two Meters Underground

(2001-2005), that dark comedy about death that was itself a luminous drama about life, was one of the HBO fictions that made watching series fashionable and convinced us to pay to do it .

The man behind her, Alan Ball, also slipped the term

showrunner

into the dictionary of many viewers

, as its creator, screenwriter and producer.

Since then, everything that bears his stamp is worthy of attention.

Some of that sophisticated combination of genres and themes remains in his new film.

My Uncle Frank

, who can be seen on Amazon Prime Video, is as relevant a reckoning for the American as it is for his protagonist.

At 63, Ball needed to somehow reorder a part of his own biography.

During one of his visits to the family home in Georgia, he decided to tell his mother that he was gay in his late thirties.

“When I told her, she replied: I think your father was like that too.

At that time he had already passed away and that revelation left me shocked.

The next day, as we drove by a lake, he told me that a very close friend of my father's had drowned there when they were both very young.

He was someone I had never heard of, despite having meant a lot in his life, "recalls Ball in an interview with EL PAÍS.

That unexpected tragic love story between two boys, in which one died and the other had to live with it for the rest of his life without being able to express what he felt, has haunted the director and screenwriter for decades.

"I could never ask my father to what extent all that was real, so it stuck so much in my head that I could only get it out by writing a script about it."

Set in 1973, the film is based on the close relationship between 18-year-old Beth and her uncle (the Frank of the title, a charismatic university professor).

Their bond is strengthened during a road trip from New York to the South Carolina town where the rest of their family lives and which is unexpectedly joined by Walid, his secret lover.

Together they go to the funeral of the clan's patriarch, an imperative and intolerant man, as set by the standards of the time.

British actor Paul Bettany (a prestigious supporting role in

Master and Commander

,

A Wonderful Mind

and the

Avengers

saga

) shines as the warm and tormented protagonist.

His personal story resonates with

My Uncle Frank as well

, as his own father came out of the closet at the end of his life.

That coincidence "was not an obligation, but it was a huge advantage" so that he could play the role and face that internal conflict "in which the most costly thing is to forgive yourself."

With these elements, Ball portrays from another point of view the internalized homophobia that he already addressed in

American Beauty

, whose script earned him an Oscar in 2000. Half romantic and half cynical, as he defines himself, that personal duality has set the tone for his work, as in this film and his other cult series,

True Blood

.

“I have to admit that this time the romantic part has won.

I felt the need to reflect on such a matter with hope ”.

To complete the ties between reality and fiction, Walid, the character that completes the main trio, is played by Peter Macdissi, the director's real-life couple.

He is an immigrant from Saudi Arabia who has also not admitted his homosexuality to his relatives.

“I usually propose that my projects are not stories about white people.

It is time to accept once and for all that the United States is a diverse community and that it is not a crime to be of another race, ”says Ball.

His name has been placed in recent years in the anti-Trump platoon that has made up much of the American entertainment industry.

“That guy is the worst thing that has happened to my country.

Thinking of a second term of yours is terrifying.

But I do not consider that my work has a great impact when it comes to changing people's minds, "he admitted days before the elections that the Democratic candidate Joe Biden had won a comfortable victory.

To shape such a personal story with

My Uncle Frank

, Ball uses the now classic

road trip

genre

, an evolution of the eternal Homeric odyssey to which he gives a new twist.

In this case, the trip is double.

The initiatory tale of Beth, the young narrator, is at the same time the return to the home of her admired uncle.

“It is a format that always works, because it is a great metaphor for our existence.

After all, we all start at one point and end at another.

Life is a journey and we all have one to tell ”, he concludes.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-12-05

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